Repairing the Garden Pressure System

It started with the garden pressure pump not cutting in when a tap was used. The controller is mechanical and as with mechanical things it had worn out. Perseverance was a waste of time as nothing would make it work consistently other that the occasional boot. The new controller was acquired and installed easily and the cut in and cut out pressures duly adjusted.

The next problem was that the pump would cut in and out every few minutes. Since there are three independent lines connected all three were turned off and the pump came to pressure and stayed there. That means the problem is in one of the three lines. Turned on line 1. No issues. Turned on line 2. No issues. Tried to turn on line 3 but the gate valve failed. Now that line is permanently off.

No spare gate valves but plenty of spare ball valves. All fine except the ball valves are a different dimension and need adapters which are not on hand. Fine, put up with the inconvenience for a few days until in Raymond Terrace next and collect some more adaptors.

Thinking ahead the decision is to replace the two remaining gate valves as the third was replaced last month, this indicates they are all of an age that could mean imminent failure.. Adapters acquired and two remaining gate valves replaced.

Not so good as both ball valves have cracks and leak which is probably why they were thrown away for us to salvage from the Dungog Dump Shop. Undoing all the good work the working gate valve is reinstalled. The failed gate valve is taken apart and repaired and also reinstalled.

All is not well. Now there are steady leaks from the connectors. Take the whole thing apart again, wash and clean away any grit, apply nylon tape and reinstall. Now the leaks are isolated to another set of adapters. Take apart again. One washer missing in one connector and a distorted washer in the other. Replace both and reinstall. Still some minor leakage in one adapter. Fiddle about for a while and reduce it to a few drops and give up. Time to take a break, Had a gutful of poly pipe repairs.

Of course the original problem of one line leaking is still there. Despite walking the entire line and checking all outlets on that line no faults found.

Time to walk away from the problem for a while. Pump turned off unless needed. A workable if inconvenient solution.

That is how it is possible to waste and entire afternoon and a couple of hours the next morning. Sometimes the cosmos burdens rather than caresses.

New Life Project - Wrap up

Our real estate agent emailed to us the results of his calculations in valuing the property. The range confirmed our own estimates.

If we were to purchase the property that we viewed up north it would mean contributing money about 30%) out of our savings in order to built a simple house that took advantage of the spectacular view. And that would be if the vendors were prepared to sell at our valuation of their property.

The building of a new house would mean that the illegal original house could be rented out providing a small income to justify the expenditure on a second house. But this does not overcome the problem of having a very large and useful shed located no where near either house. There is little doubt this would drive us mad after a short period.

The decision then is to (for the moment) stay where we are. The likelihood of another property coming on the market with the attributes we desire and in the price range we could afford is small.

That then brings us to Plan B i.e. the improvements to HHF we documented earlier. Most of these revolve around reducing the amount of work performing tasks which regular and needed. The first item to tackle is watering.

Since the agent examined HHF we have been taking things a bit easy spending more time reading. This has been a way of getting away from the regular demands of HHF. Now after a period of rest and confirmation that a move was not imminent  we got back into the tasks.

We had moved away from the automatic watering of the fruit trees with the system installed when the trees were planted. initially to reduce the volume of water required at each watering as well as encourage the trees to dig deeper for water. This has worked well for the last few years as we only applied water to a tree when it showed distinct stress over a period of days.

This last 6 months has been a an exception with the prolonged dry spell putting most of the trees under severe stress resulting in us watering almost every tree. There are some exceptions such as the olives and macadamias.

The first item on the Plan B list was to fix and test the old watering system in the orchard. That has taken most of the day. Some better spray nozzles have been utilised and any trees not requiring regular watering have been turned off but left in the system in case. There were lots of breaks to be repaired where trees had grown and damaged the pipe. Some of these underground breaks required a lot of digging to find and repair. By the end of the day the system was working well.

All that needs to be finished is to bury the new sections installed to replace damaged pipes. The system tested extremely well with the modifications, very good pressure to all the nominated trees and a good fine spray pattern.

Plan B consists of quite a few more irrigation jobs but the orchard was by far the biggest single item.

A sense of achievement at the end of a long hot day.

Watering, Havarti, Ice Cream, Cleaning fermentation equipment.

The hot weather is back with a vengeance and we are spending a lot of time ensuring our fruit trees are not suffering. A lot of the trees are laden with fruit and it would be a real shame to lose it at this late stage when harvest is so close. The watering method we have chose is to give each tree a good hours soaking with a fine 360 degree spray. Drippers are great in the right soil type but our soils need something that provides time for the water to soak in to the ground as opposed to dropping straight through to the shallow shale bedrock. Therefore every hour one of us goes out and relocates the dozen or so sprays mounted on flat pieces of wood. These are nothing fancy just a small piece of 12mm poly pipe nailed to an offcut with a hose adapter at one end and bent double at the other with a spray nozzle mounted in the middle. There are a number of different nozzles depending on how far the spray needs to be thrown.

In between watering movements a batch of Havarti is produced from the latest batch of milk. Although we love all types of cheeses Havarti is a staple. A lovely texture and flavour and an excellent melting cheese (melted cheese and tomato). In addition it is easy to make and almost devoid of complexity which allows other tasks to be co-ordinated with its production.

A lazy light pressing for the Havarti

A little bit of cream was pinched from the last batch of milk and Jean knocked out a Green Tea ice cream. We'll save this for Christmas when her mum visits.

One of the important tasks associated with beer making is cleanliness. This lack of hygiene struck home this week. I thought I'd given the fermentation containers a thorough clean and in addition they had been stored with a Potassium Metabisulpate solution. But not so. In one batch as it neared the end of fermentation a small amount of white mould had started to form on top of the brew and in the other even closer to completion the surface had a whitish film on the surface. This is not a complete disaster as the mould is surface formed and if the batch is bottled carefully only a small amount of beer needs to be discarded. Having bottled the worst affected container yesterday it went through a very thorough cleaning process. First scrubbed and rinsed then a heavy application of Destainex and soaked overnight. It will then sit in a strong SO2 solution for a number of hours just to ensure every part of the fermentation container is sterile. It is so easy when things are going well and you are in a bit of a hurry to skip over some important aspects of brewing. The lesson can be a hard one.

Bees and watering

Bees

Bee club meeting today. Very well attended with all seats taken and lots of newcomers. These meetings are always interesting. Fortunately they are well run and reasonably brief 1-2 hours before we descend on the apiary for hands on.

There is always lots of new and interesting information transacted during the meeting.

• It appears we may be in for another bad season as nectar seems to be in short supply and everyone is experiencing a slow build up of honey.
• There is a shortage of queens for sale making it difficult for the club to perform its annual queen replacement and also to prepare nucs to supply orders.
• One of the members is preparing to do a PhD on Honeybees as bio indicators of environmental health and to track plant species through pollen.
• The clubs training program has commenced with 18 participants.
• There is a big demand for fully established hives by people wanting to get into bee keeping easily. I'm not sure this is the best idea. Sounds too much like instant bee keeping without the commitment to learn.
• We had a guest speaker who as well as being a queen breeder sells apiary supplies. He is incredibly knowledgeable and never fails to entertain and inform on the subject of bees. All sorts of little titbits.
• The proper ways to prepare bee boxes
• Thermo Wood boxes are easier to prepare
• Plastic queen excluders don't have crevices for the SHB to hide
• When harvesting wax keep it in a molten state for 24 hours for impurities to settle out as well as the extended molten period killing any AFB (American Foul Brood) spores.
• Old frames should be destroyed and are not suitable for wax harvest
• AFB can survive in foundation wax for 30-40 years. Best not buy old hives without provenance.
• A solid dissertation on identifying AFB including that it has a distinctive odour
• AFB will effect almost everyone sooner or later as it is spread easily by robber bees from wild hives.
• Some plant species will produce nectar which when converted to honey will crystalize extremely rapidly (almost before your eyes) e.g. Canola and if left on the frame too long will be near impossible to extract.
• Organic honey is extremely difficult to produce with any certainty because of the distance bees travel to collect pollen and nectar. The hives would have to be located in sites surrounded by native bush in all directions for 5 kilometres.

After getting home it was time to attend to our own bees. They received a new super with 10 frames. Two frames of brood were lifted into the new super and fresh foundation frames replaced them in the bottom box. The hive looks very healthy and there is lots of activity.

Hose and spray mounted on a block of wood

Watering

Our inspection of the orchard today showed that the trees are starting to feel the hot dry weather. Flowering and fruit set is excellent but some drooping of foliage is starting. Out came the spray nozzles and hoses and we have commenced a watering program whereby each tree will receive two hours of fine spray at its base. We have a tick sheet to keep track of the trees completed. Rather than water sequentially we pick and choose depending on the state of the tree and its crop value.

We find this method very effective in slowly wetting the soil and penetrating into the ground without run off. In all about 12 -14 trees can be watered simultaneously.

More Seedlings Planted Out and Being Prepared.

The cold frame is producing good results. Planted out today were Cucumbers (two varieties), Beans (two varieties) and Corn. Looking forward to some wonderful vegetables. The Dill and Basil seedlings purchase earlier finally found their way into the ground. Most of the Basil went into the big Tomato bed amongst the Tomato seedlings. Supposedly to ward off the fruit fly. The remainder will be planted close to the kitchen. Some dill went into the Cucumber mounds and some into a pot near the kitchen.

Over the river (our paid workplace) the Travelling Irrigator experienced a disaster when it rolled onto its side. A poly threaded joiner on the spray head stripped its thread. Spent a lot of time trying to find a replacement but there were no spares to be found in the collection of poly fittings. Being after 5 that was the end of irrigation for the day. A good topic for preparedness.

Preparedness

When our watering system was set up many years ago we put taps at regularly spaced intervals to make it easier to access water from any point in The Orchard and garden. The original thought was it would make it easier to attend to a grass fire but in fact the real benefit had been to allow individual trees to be hand watered when they are in need. During dry spells not all the trees suffer. Some either have found somewhere to put their roots to obtain moisture or are just resilient. Others  need more attention.

Gradually over the years we have collected inexpensive but good quality hoses which are kept at each tap (well almost each tap). With so many projects on the go efficiency was achieved by not dragging hoses about and also allowing multiple points to be watered simultaneously.

Being prepared for a break or breakdown makes a lot of sense. For the want of a backup spare the entire day's work can collapse into chaos. A good example is our watering system which is split into three parts enabling the isolation of all or one part should there be a problem such as a burst ot broken pipe. The entire water distribution system consists of 1" poly pipe. There are two spare parts kept. One is a 1" poly joiner for big breaks. The second is a stainless steel hose clip in a suitable size for 1'' pipe for small holes.

Part of preparedness is thinking about most likely scenarios and having a plan (and a part) at hand. Just like having a spare set of mower blades. Lowering the dependence on outside help is part of preparedness.

One important item is organisation. If it can't be found because the storage system has no methodology then it is a complete waste of time. Whether that be tools or parts. Nothing more frustrating than scrabbling about in bins or shelves looking for something you think you might have and not being able to lay your hand on it quickly.

Trying to be self sufficient and live life simply involves a lot of work and time is a precious commodity. Planting, watering, harvesting and many other tasks are time critical and cannot be put off indefinitely.

Spring is one of the busiest times of year

A few of the fruit trees needed water today. Still no rain and the Avocado tree has flowered and looking a bit limp. Out came a hose and one of our many watering stands. The shallower rooted trees such as Citrus all received a water.  Rather than water all the trees with the central irrigation system we chose only those trees absolutely in need. With these selective watering's we use a 360 degree spray which applies the water gently over a couple of hours and over a large area.

Steady progress all day weeding and mulching and planting. Used the accumulation of weeded material to start a new compost. This year we made 4 composts and all bar one have been used. Number 5 is underway. When the weeding's have been used any additional green mater can be collected with the push mower and catcher. There was plenty of dry material, We cleaned up the hay shed when the Lucerne was stacked and also the loose material from where the cattle were feeding.



Bin of  portable watering sprays

Portable watering spray

Preparedness

I don't know if anyone else has experienced the following. Sometimes when shopping for groceries we'll come across a product which is really good. For example Coconut Cream which is just Coconut material with none of the other additives such as water, emulsifiers or thickeners. You buy a couple and then the next time you need some it has disappeared - no longer stocked or just out of stock for a couple of months. So annoying.

Well our solution has been to buy a few extra of any really good products which we use frequently and keep a stock of them. This worked out well with Anchovies in Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Only one brand had the larger most economical 375 gram jar. We always kept 3 or 4 jars in the pantry. It went out of stock everywhere when it was substituted by an alternative brand with Sunflower Oil. Only the small very expensive jars of EVOO were on offer. Luckily we had plenty in stock and then 3 months later our preferred product re-appeared.

The pantry in the La Cave  is a mix of home bottled and bulk bought items (as well as equipment)

Watering the Vegetables

Most of the day was spent on other peoples farms checking and moving cattle, harrowing, moving irrigators and fencing.

The westerly winds this week have dried out lots of beds and pots and another pump up from the dam was needed. Started both pumps to ensure the holding tank at the house was filled and then gave all the beds a good soaking and most of the pots were hand watered a job to be finished in the morning.

When the watering system was first installed the pipe was put in about 400 mm above the soil to reduce overspray. This was fine except when the crop was taller than the height of the pipe. At that point the spray couldn't reach all parts of the bed and dry pockets would appear. Eventually the inertia to fix the problem was overcome and the pipe raised to above the protective netting. A job which turned out to be surprisingly easy and quick. Isn't that always the way. The end result is a much more thorough watering system and the overspray doesn't seem to have any additional negative affect.

Overhead spray system

Sometimes it makes you wonder why we put up with the poorer solution for so long.

The other change that was made at the time was to hard wire all the beds to their own tap at a central point rather than drag and couple a hose each time watering was needed. Again a relatively simple job which made watering significantly easier.

A tap for each bed

Using the same riser to store the hose as well